Thursday, 23 May 2013

Not Hatred, Something Worse

'Blood on his hands, hatred in his eyes' shouts the headline on today's
Daily Mail front page, over a picture of one of the two Islamist killers
who butchered a soldier on the South circular road in Woolwich
yesterday. A good headline, but belied by the picture - there's no
hatred in his eyes; there's nothing at all, really. It looks like what
psychologists call blunted affect. As far as this guy was concerned, as
he stood there with a meat cleaver in his hand, talking calmly to a
passerby, he'd just been doing a job, and was simply explaining the
situation, as if he were apologising for a roadworks. That is the scary
thing - though perhaps it should not surprise us. Most of the
perpetrators of such horrific acts in history have no doubt gone about
their work in just such a businesslike spirit.

About Me

Nige, who, like Mr Kenneth Horne, prefers to remain anonymous, was also a founder blogger of The Dabbler and a co-blogger on the Bryan Appleyard Thought Experiments blog. He is the sole blogger on this one, and his principal aim is to share various of life's pleasures. These tend to relate to books, art, poems, butterflies, birds, churches, music, walking, weather, drink, etc, with occasional references to the passing scene.